Final Fantasy VII: The Aftershock
by Dragon Eternal
Summary: The materia is faltering. After the Meteor and Holy clash, every spell has weakened to nothing. Everything has turned upside down in the world. Is the outcome better than the crisis?


I don't own Final Fantasy VII, though along the line I will make up characters that are mine. Oh, and I altered the story a line where Cloud dies after the last fight with Sephiroth.  
  
Read on and enjoy!  
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The world was saved, or what was left of it. The Meteor and Holy had created a giant crater outside of Midgar. Everyone was so happy then.  
  
The parties lasted for days, people where calling the eight of them heroes. Red XIII ended up being the head matriarch of Cosmo Canyon. Barret raised his daughter in his home town. Cid continued his science on the stars above and became the 2nd man in space also. Yuffie returned home and became the ninja master of her father's dojo. Cloud...   
Cloud had died in the last fight against Sephiroth. Tifa returned to Niblheim in tears when he could not be found. Vincent Valentine left searching for the source of the LifeStream, for who knows what reason.  
  
  
But when they where sepparated, that was when the trouble started.  
  
The materia's affect on the world had started to wane, first it was very light, then the spells started to fail after several tries. Red XIII suspected that Holy had used most of the power in all materia when it save them and thought it would be just a hitch. He was wrong. Dead wrong.  
  
Months afterward, materia stopped working completely. Monsters that where once easilly defeated where running rampid in towns that where too weak to defend themselves. Several towns where destroyed and people where forced to resort to 'primitive' weapons like gunpowder weapons and explosives compared to the enchanched weapons that relied on materia to power them. The buildings where Shinra once had control where the ones that still stood, their military fortifications still held strong. Ironic, one of the corperations that tried to control the world finally does, but none of them are left to run it.  
  
Two years after the materia faltered, strange monsters where sighted. The heroes of what would come to be called the 'Jenova Crisis', claimed that they resembled what where the ancient 'Weapons' organic creations of the Earth created to protect and keep the Earth safe, especially from humans. Most of the Mako reactors that still existed were blown apart from the Weapons.  
  
Civilization was forced back, great technology lost, many dead. The Earth itself was their killer, their captor, and perhaps their only salvation.  
  
***  
20 Years later  
***  
  
  
Tifa looked up at the observatory in Cosmo Canyon. She was traveling in a caravan from Gold Saucer, escorting goods and supplies to the home of Red XIII. Was the world still worth living in now? Wounds that once where curable caused death. Phoenix downs where getting more scarce and harder to make. The other heroes of 'The Jenova Crisis' had spread themselves out where they could and tried to help out . She and the others lost contact with Vincent before it all started.   
  
Tifa Lockheart had led a group of volunteers she called 'Strife Company' in memory of whom she adored. Many diffrent people where in the group, many with weapons forgotten or with current weapons. Some with scimitars, tridents, and poisened crossbows. Others with shotguns, gattling guns, and perhaps a machine gun.  
  
She smiled in spite of herself. Gun turrets looked very strange on the borderlines of a very old land.  
  
**  
  
"Nice to see you again Ms. Lockheart." A red lion appeared on the steps before Tifa.  
  
Tifa bowed with a smile on her face. "Greetings oh red furball the sixteenth." She rubbed her fingers through the cub's fur on his head.  
  
"Ms. Lockheart!" He grumbled. "Come on! You know I hate it when you call me that."   
  
She laughed at the cub. "And I told you to stop calling me Ms. Lockheart, Tifa is fine. Where is your father?" He was 'born' from a remix of Red XIII's DNA and Cloud's. He was a red tiger like his forefather, but had an unsualally spikey mane, even for his father.   
  
"Fine Tifa, just don't call me furball again!" He bared his teeth but could only make it apear like a lopsided smile. "My name is Nimbus!" He flicked his tail at her, but all it succeeded in doing was tickling Tifa's legs.  
  
"Oh be quite lil' one." She smiled at him. "Your father at the top again?"  
  
Nimbus snorted. "Yeah, it's the only place quiet enough for him to talk to the lifestream now a days." He looked over at the gate. "Kappa's are on their migrational route again. We have to use the hard shells now, more adolescent's than young 'uns this year." His eyes looked over at the Strife Company. "So, was your trip okay?"  
  
"That is classified for your father and you know that." She waggled her finger. "But, we ran into a few monsters, thanks to the information Yufie sent us." Yufie, the ninja grandmaster, led the research in the bestiary migrations and actions. Thanks to her research, the deaths in the first few years where drastically lowered. "Well, I'll talk to you later, keep the company from getting drunk okay?" Tifa turned her back and begain to scale the canyon steps.  
  
He swished his tail in a giddylike motion. "Gotcha' covered, I drank it all before you came."   
  
----End Chapter One----  
  
So, what do you think? I could use some ideas for the next chapter so feel free to list them.   
Please review. 


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